Go Forth and Prosper - Internet/Web/Online Service Information

Home Office Computing, June, 2000 by Amee Abel

The tools you need to get ahead in business

EVEN IF YOU DON'T DO BUSINESS ON THE WEB, THE WEB can help you succeed in business. Dozens of Web-based services are vying to help you streamline your operation and best the competition--even the big guys. How? Say a large firm needs extra help to handle a new account. While the large firm hands the task off to the human resources department, you sidestep the corporate layers and mine talent directly from any number of job and executive recruitment sites, and yield a stack of impressive resumes that same afternoon.

Using Web technology, you can find the resources to finance your venture, reduce your phone expenses, network with other small and home-based businesses, and even learn how to provide better customer service. Add to the mix application service providers (ASPs)--Web sites that rent you business applications that live on the sites' servers. These ASPs offer a host of services, such as team meeting and collaboration, document management, online data storage, and billing and expense tracking software--much of it free. Instead of installing software, you type in a Web address. Similarly, online desktops provide calendar and contact management applications you access from anywhere there's a Web connection.

The tools are out there; now we'll show you how to work--the Web way.

Work With Me

Corporations have in-house networks that let employees stay in touch, share documents, and schedule meetings. But these companies also have hefty bills for multiuser software licenses. You can get the groupware advantage without paying big bucks for hardware and software at a variety of sites, including Visto.com Corp. (www.visto.com), HotOffice Technologies Inc. (www.hotoffice.com), Intranets.com (www. intranets.com), and When.com (www.when.com).

Although each company puts a slightly different spin on teamwork, each offers calendar functions and lets you manage address books, to-do lists, and e-mail. You can also share documents with clients and schedule group meetings.

HotOffice offers both free and paid versions of its meeting tool. And When.com has an extensive listing of worldwide events you can add to your personal calendar--or list your own. Visto, also a free service, supports both guest users (those you've given permission to view your personal calendar) and groups (full intranet service, including a private group bulletin board, calendar, and photo gallery). Intranets.com also lets you host real-time meetings with members of your private group, and features a group calendar as well as document management and instant messaging functions.

Meeting and collaboration tools such as WebEx Inc. (www.webex.com) and Evoke (www.evoke.com) take things a bit further, letting you work with clients and colleagues around the world via the Internet. The cost for hosting an Evoke meeting depends on how many users access your conference; so an hour-long meeting with six people, for example, would cost about $86 (including a $10 setup charge).

WebEx is free to users who limit meetings to four participants for less than an hour. Larger and longer meetings are charged on a sliding scale (an hour-long, six-person meeting that allows incoming teleconference calls would cost about $78). (For more information on virtual meetings and collaboration, see "Let's Get Together" in this issue's Workstyles section.)

Once you've collaborated on a project, you'll need to store it. If you're like most home workers, you keep files on your hard disk. But if you have several clients or several iterations of a project, your hard disk can get cluttered quickly. Or maybe a file's too large to store on a floppy. That's where online storage services such as NetDocuments (www.netdocuments.com), X:drive Inc. (www.xdrive.com), and MySpace.com (www.myspace.com) come in.

These sites operate as banks for your documents--secure yet accessible. One advantage of storing documents on the Web is that clients (to whom you've given access) can view works in progress--and make changes quickly and conveniently; and you won't incur additional costs for overnighting packages, for instance. Most of these services let you store the first 10MB or 20MB of data for free, then typically charge a small monthly fee for an additional 50MB, 100MB, or more storage space.

Cash Concerns

If you bill clients by the hour, it's important to keep track of the time you spend on a project and bill in a timely manner. Sophisticated software solutions aren't usually within a home business's price range; but OpenAir.com, formerly TimeBills.com (www.timebills.com), makes the billing pain- and cost-free. The site lets you log your hours and create invoices.

OpenAir.com lets you password-protect your records from unauthorized users, but you can let employees add their hours before you submit your invoice. The result is accurate and fast billing, even when your group works from disparate locations.

The Time Bills, Expense Reports, and Time Sheets services are free for the first five users on an account. The cost for each additional user is $3.95 per month for one service or $6.95 per month for use of all three.